Meta Platforms Inc. appears well-prepared to meet Europe’s new strict content moderation rules, but will submit to a stress test of its systems next month, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said after a meeting with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.
(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. appears well-prepared to meet Europe’s new strict content moderation rules, but will submit to a stress test of its systems next month, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said after a meeting with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.
Breton was largely positive coming out of the meeting Friday with Zuckerberg, part of the European regulator’s tour this week of technology companies in Silicon Valley.
Meta presented “a lot of information” about its work to comply with the European Union’s Digital Services Act, but were also happy to take a stress test “not to forget anything.”
Zuckerberg agreed to a test in mid-July to assess how the company handles content moderation rules. Breton said Meta has roughly 1,000 people working on DSA implementation.
Meta’s CEO was interested in a future test of how the company’s platforms will handle upcoming competition rules set out by the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Companies have to self report as gatekeepers with certain core platform services on July 3.
Breton also said he urged Zuckerberg to increase resources fighting disinformation, especially Russian disinformation in Eastern European countries about the war in Ukraine. And he discussed a report from the Wall Street Journal about child predators targeted kids on Meta’s Instagram photo-sharing site.
The commissioner said he and Zuckerberg were “aligned” on the EU’s regulation of artificial intelligence, which is now in final negotiations. They agreed on the bloc’s risk-based approach and to measures like watermarking, Breton said.
On Thursday, Breton met with Twitter owner Elon Musk and new CEO Linda Yaccarino and told reporters that the social media site needs to put more resources toward addressing sensitive content if it wants to comply with the EU’s rules ahead of an August deadline.
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